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Soviet Steel – Building my Battlefield

I have a problem. I’m creating a winter force but all my current terrain is of a more summer or fantasy theme, which obviously konflikts (geddit!) with the snow basing and wintry nature of my forces.

Clearly I need to create some themed terrain to fit my winter soviet forces. I don’t want to replace my current gaming boards so I’ve decided to find an appropriate mouse-pad style gaming mat. I like the one that Urban Matz produce. It’s predominantly snowy and I would like some more broken ground, but I think it looks OK for my needs.

So, with my backdrop chosen I wanted to think about what features I’d like to place on the table. The whole DNA experimentation being undertaken by the German and Russian sides has inspired me to think of creating a science compound, where the process of creating super soldiers takes place. I’ve got some excellent LED lit buildings which are too futuristic for my konflikt table, but the theory is similar. My plan is to find suitable bunkers / factories that match my period and then enhance them with red or green LED light strings to give an eerie glowing interior. I plan to do a blog on my adventures with scenic lighting once my first factory is finished.

Of course no top secret lab would go unguarded so I’ll also be grabbing some suitable guard towers to surround my base. I think I may add in a prison block too where our experiments reside, there may even be a bear enclosure!

So far I’ve spotted some very nice towers on the Blotz website and I plan to be playing with some of these buildings soon. I particularly like the guard towers, I think I’ll need two or three of those with at least two of the Jails as enclosures for my DNA subjects with a hospital block for the experimentation.

Guard Tower

Jail

Hospital

I’ve got a lot to be getting on with, but I’ve found with bolt action, games are very dull (and often one-sided) without plenty of terrain to use when making your assault on the enemy positions.

I’ve also got some lovely rural Eastern European buildings courtesy of Charlie Foxtrot models which will fill one side to represent a village of scared civilians, too afraid to go out into the woods at night! I’ll be posting a hobby page with those houses on once I’m happy that they’re finished.